


Cake

by wrabbit



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Birthday, Comment Fic, Community: fic_promptly, Drunk John, F/M, Gen, Post-Hiatus, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 02:48:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrabbit/pseuds/wrabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Mary celebrate Sherlock's birthday - his second birthday, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cake

John and Mary are giggling over vanilla cake when Sherlock comes in, a sparkling layer of fresh snow in his hair, each individual flake visible where it's been snagged by a black strand before the moment passes and they melt all at once in the heated room. He smells like winter where he comes over to stare at their tipsy, broken creation on the table while he removes his scarf from around his neck, likely wondering where they've gone and moved his little row of petri dishes to.

John wipes his eyes as they stop laughing. "Greg's not forgiven you, then," he deduces. Sherlock looks down and starts unbuttoning his heavy coat with quick movements.

"No."

"Oh dear," John says and has to bite his lip, trying not to laugh when Mary glances at him out of the corner of her eye.

They whisper, giggling, as Sherlock disappears for a moment, opening his laptop at the table by the window and shedding outerwear at the same time. "I told you," John tells her.

She bites her lip and pushes the container of icing at him. "Hurry up. Maybe he didn't notice."

"The fucking cake?" he asks incredulously.

They look down at it, leaning over the plate with their palms planted on either side on the table. "Well, it doesn't look very much like a cake now, does it?" she says, reasonably, "Thanks to you," and he has to stand up so that he won't spit on it as he starts to laugh loudly again.

She is grinning behind her palm and filling his wine glass when Sherlock ambles back over, undressed down to a white dress shirt tucked into a pair of his silly, tight trousers. John's giggling dies down at Sherlock looks over them.

"Drunk," Sherlock says, "And at one in the afternoon, Miss Mary?" he adds, imitating what her schoolkids call her.

John mocks him, "Miss Mary, Miss Mary," as he leans over making annoying kissy sounds until his and Mary's pursed lips meet over the cake.

"What is this?" Sherlock asks when they break apart with an obnoxious moaning sound.

"Ummm," Mary starts, looking aside at John. "Ummm," John echoes her.

"Well," Mary says. They frown down at it. A quarter of it was in bits and crumbs, and the rest of it was in three ragged pieces, pushed together to make a hopeful circle.

Sherlock looks at him soberly. "I hope you didn't unseal the culture dishes," he says.

"No, of course not," John says seriously as Sherlock turns to go into his room.

Mary shrugs at him as the door shuts behind Sherlock. He shrugs back.

"Alright." He picks up an icing bag. "How do you work this thing?"

"Here." Mary holds out her hand for the bag and picks up a metal tip.

"Did I ever tell you Sherlock is the frosting king?"

She raises an eyebrow.

"Frosty, get it?"

\----

They slather most of the white icing over the top, filling in the broken places, before haphazardly mixing the blue food coloring Mary brought from home into the rest of the bucket. "Happy. Birthday. Cockface," John says as he begins writing carefully, biting the tip of his tongue as the lines of the first letter wobble all over the place.

"No." Mary presses her forehead to the table in defeat.

"Please. Buttfuck me. Greg."

"No!"

\----

John knocks gently at Sherlock's bedroom door, leaning over to hold his ear near the wood, but standing back in case Sherlock decides to slam it open and bowl him over. "Sherlock?"

He taps again with his knuckles when there's no answer, looking over at Mary when Sherlock speaks. "What?"

"Could you come out for a second?"

"Why?"

"Please?"

John steps back as the knob turns and the door opens at a normal rate to reveal Sherlock who is holding his phone at one side and has apparently been lying on his primly made bed in the dark. "What?"

"Come here," John says, smiling and nodding toward the kitchen. Sherlock sighs as he follows him out of his doorway.

He crosses his arms when they come to a stop in the kitchen in front of the table that has been cleared except for a steel cake dome Mary found deep in one of their cupboards.

"Happy birthday!" they say, lifting the cover.

Sherlock looks at them, eyebrow sliding into default first degree supercilious expression.

"It's not my birthday," he points out.

"It is," John insists, picking up a butter knife and lifting it over the cake that reads, in fact, 'Happy Birthday, Sherlock.'

Sherlock eyebrows drop as looks between them and the cake. "I -," he says.

"There's another bottle of wine on the counter."

"We're not quite done with this one," Mary says.

"Let's finish it then. Sherlock," John calls him over. He fills his glass from the open bottle and hands it to Sherlock. "Sit down," he suggests and goes to pull plates out of the cupboard.

John reaches out to grip their hands when they're all sat at the table again, squeezing. "I know you don't care about your real birthday," he says to Sherlock. "But this one is very important to me."

Sherlock blinks, and they stare at each other for a long moment, broken finally when Mary reaches out for his other hand. Sherlock lifts it from his lap to grip hers. "Thank you," he says, gaze settling in confusion on the table.

John takes his hands back to wipe his eyes.

\----

"Did you drop it on the floor?" Sherlock asks tentatively when the frosting isn't enough to seal it and the cake starts to fall apart on the plate. 

"Yes!" Mary accuses, just as John says, "Shut up," sniffing and laughing at the same time.


End file.
